I can’t think of Pluto without remembering a panel in a Silver Age Superman comic showing Superman on Pluto gathering a large, rainbow-colored sunflower to take back to Earth as a gift for Bizarro-Lois.
Even as a kid I knew Pluto was too cold for sunflowers, but somehow the memory stuck with me.
Its a very remote location the dimensions are larger than i thought did tombaugh get it right in 1930 i would say reasonably so
Mr. Rigney echoes this critique of systemic racism but reserves most of his ire for feminism, which he blames for many of empathy’s ills. Because women are the more empathetic sex, he argues, they often take empathy too far.
He found an encapsulation of this theory at Mr. Trump’s inaugural prayer service, where a woman preached from the pulpit. During a sermon that went viral, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde pleaded with the Republican president to “have mercy” on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, prompting a conservative backlash.
“Budde’s attempt to ‘speak truth to power’ is a reminder that feminism is a cancer that enables the politics of empathetic manipulation,” Mr. Rigney wrote for the evangelical World magazine.
Great video.
They talk about how fast the craft must fly to keep the number transit years down, and a 6 hour transit time for signaling back to earth. But I find it fascinating that they can actually transmit that much data over that distance at all. I wonder about the combination of antenna, transmit power, and digital signal processing or codecs used.
Selfy:
Please read this post about what the poet Robert Frost said about justice and mercy.
That was nice! It gives good grounds to give Pluto back its planetary dignity, I think. It’s quite surprising that such a degree of chemistry could go on there. I wonder how much of it could be due to the fact that Charon is there, its gravity perhaps causing some internal churn under the Plutonian surface, since Charon is so relatively large compared to its orbital ‘parent’. (And not very far away, either – checking the ratio of orbital distance to diameter.)
Here’s another peculiar thing that the NASA website has to relate: Charon is tidally locked, like our moon. Back-of-the-napkin estimate suggests that Charon takes up about 3 1/2 degrees of the Plutonian sky, which would make it look quite big if looking up from the surface. One could in principle find the spot on Pluto at which Charon is at the zenith, camp out there for a few days and have Charon suspended overhead looking exactly the same the whole time. That would make any concept of tides very weird.
Of course I have to have a token editorial quibble: the narrator forgot, apparently, that he had explained what tholins were on three different occasions.
@Phillip Sells:It gives good grounds to give Pluto back its planetary dignity, I think.
If Pluto is a planet, then there should be like twenty planets (if not hundreds), including Ceres which, old as we are here, few of us are old enough to remember when it was in the list of planets (has an astronomical symbol and everything).
It wasn’t because of anything specific to Pluto that led to it being dropped from the list. It was because there are too many things like Pluto that would also have to count as planets, if Pluto did. A bit like the difference between a “continent” and an “island”.
It was discovered through chance while looking for an actual planet, anyway. It was not the planet they were looking for. That planet was never needed to account for orbital discrepancies once Neptune’s mass was estimated more accurately.
Selfy:
Thanks for the link! I had to shorten it for it to work:
I’m sure that was the issue I read and June, 1961 sounds right. I think Bizarro was wooing real Lois and Superman responded using sitcom logic by wooing Bizarro-Lois to get Bizarro jealous and go back to Bizarro-Lois.
Happy ending!
Is empathy a sin?
==
Here’s the ‘sermon’ that woman delivered. It’s largely drivel, no surprise to anyone who has sat in an Episcopal Church. It concludes with a bogus, gauzy description of Democratic Party mascot groups, in regard to whom we’re not to be big meanies by enforcing the law or by taking anyone else’s interests into consideration.
== https://carmenmccain.com/2025/01/22/transcript-of-bishop-mariann-budes-sermon-during-the-2025-us-inaugural-prayer-service/
==
I’m not seeing that what’s repellent about her has much to do with feminism, other that invalid ordinations to supposed holy orders derive from some of the same confusions as other elements of feminist discourse.
But if Pluto isn’t a planet, how did all those astrology charts work?
Why shouldn’t there be twenty planets? When they found out there were ninety elements instead of four or five, did they redefine “element” to reduce the numbers to a list a third grader could memorize? As a Kansan I think we should designate Pluto as our Official State Planet.
When was Ceres called a planet? I’m pretty old and do not remember it ever being called a planet.
If Pluto is a planet, then there should be like twenty planets (if not hundreds)…
We could grandfather it in.
@FOAF:When was Ceres called a planet?
First half of the 19th century, would be very surprising indeed if you remembered.
@bof:When they found out there were ninety elements instead of four or five, did they redefine “element” to reduce the numbers to a list a third grader could memorize?
Once it was fully understood what an element was, it was also fully understood that there’s not necessarily a finite number of them; as long as you can add protons you can get another one.
Alan Stern (https://https://x.com/AlanStern) deserves a lot of the credit for getting the Pluto New Horizons spacecraft funded, built, and launched.
@sparkee:Lots of us are of the opinion that Pluto should be considered a planet
No one is stopping you. You will not be able to compel the astronomy community to agree with you, but it’s not like they’re going to fine you or something. Call Pluto whatever you want.
While you’re at it, call tomatoes “vegetables” and call lobsters “fish” if you’re in the kitchen, or even if you’re not. Call Pteranodons and Pterodactyls “dinosaurs” while you are at it. Words are here to serve us, not we to serve them.
“May said he sees Pluto as a “classical planet””
Does that suggest other classifications such as rock planets, country planets, jazz planets etc?
FOAF, the music of the spheres…
I didn’t want to have that argument about planet status again. Can’t we argue about tides on Pluto instead, and the plausibility of building living habitations there? That’d be more fun.
Taibbi says the NYPost and his own sources tell him this is the first of a wave similar ones of more to come.
The reason why Bolton was came first is that statute of limitations on criminal charges expires next month.
For another glimpse of rare beauty, checkout Ronnie O’Sullivan making two maximums (his 16th and 17th, and the first he’s had in seven years) in one match on one evening roughly one hour apart, about a week ago. This is genius on display: https://youtu.be/ypuVCLn0H5Q
TJ:
Good link and good summary. I add my recommendation.
Between John Bolton and John Durham I’ll never trust a big moustache again.
“Please read this post about what the poet Robert Frost said about justice and mercy.”
Thank you, Neo, that was an interesting post! I am not much of a poetry reader, but I do enjoy Frost. I wasn’t aware of his political activity.
====
huxley, thanks for the info on The Bride of Bizarro!
A librarian of my acquaintance said that “all classification schemes are ultimately arbitrary. The point is, can you learn them?”
==
The mean diameter of Mercury is 5.19x that of Ceres, if I’m to believe Wikipedia. The square root of that coefficient is 2.28. An object with a diameter 2.28x that of Ceres would have one of 2,141 km. The mean diameter of Pluto and Eris exceed that. The diameter of a half-dozen moons in the Solar system do as well. Two moons exceed Mercury in diameter.
I’m reading a transcript of the Ghislaine Maxwell interviews & finding it interesting. Transcripts and audio links are here: https://www.justice.gov/maxwell-interview
@ huxley > “But if Pluto isn’t a planet, how did all those astrology charts work?”
About as well as they did with all the other planets.
Thanks, huxley.
Earlier, you ask (as many do) “if Pluto isn’t a planet, how did all those astrology charts work?”
Traditionally, astrology works with movements and positions of the (other) five planets visible to the naked eyes, plus Earth’s moon. (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune.)
Planetai or “wandering stars” describes hot these astronomical bodies movements, instead of appearing fixed like the stars do.
In England, William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781. At the time, he thought he’d discovered a comet and named it after his new Royal patron, the British King, “St. George.” Thus, learning it was a planet took two more years.
Naming a planet after one king in Europe was not popular. And therefore it took another 70 years to decide upon the name “Uranus” — a primordial Greek god and the only planet name derived from Greek.
Herschel used a 6 inch reflecting telescope in his discovery. “Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it is very dim [magnitude 5.6]….” —Wiki. Mag 5 generally requires binoculars or else ultra dark skies. The very faintest stars visible to the eye are mag 6. So, Uranus fits in this difficult, murky, frontier of visibility.
And experienced observers know to use an optical technique called “averted vision” or off-centered viewing because the retina there is more light sensitive than the center.
White House adjacent lawyer Mike Davis says that people who think the Bolton raid is about documents in his book-screed are going to be very surprised once the charging documents are unveiled. — via Watters on FNC
Michael Shellenburger’s sources concur. Instead it’s about “drip, drip, drip leaks by” Bolton when he was in the White House.
Thus, it sounds like the real objective is to punish Bolton for leaking WH information supported by classified documents — that’s how I’m reading the prosecutorial entrails.
The bigger question, given FBI Director Patel’s morning dicta on X.com — “No one is above the law” — is how far does this leaking to Trump opponents go? To the powerful within the Deep State?
My suspicions: yes.
AesopFan, TJ:
I know how astrology works and I was joking. Guess I shouldn’t have been stingy with the emoji.
I remember when Pluto was demoted, astrologers were upset. But they got over it and went back casting horoscopes per usual.
Re: Averted vision
I once wrote a poem partly about averted vision:
_______________________________
Directions
on a clear winter night look up
and find the Great Square
formed by Pegasus
follow the twin arcs
streaming from the upper left corner
that’s the Lady Andromeda
carried off by the wingéd horse
sight up from the second pair of stars
and slightly to the right
now don’t look straight at it
but a little to the side and
relax
there—that faint glow
the Andromeda Galaxy
“I’m reading a transcript of the Ghislaine Maxwell interviews…”
After reading the first 2 hours, I’m stopping. It seems that Maxwell is lying, mentally impaired, or just dumb. And Trump’s lawyer & US Attorney Todd Blanche seems to be incapable of uttering a coherent sentence.
Ok huxley.
I think the dissemination of classified documents
by John Boltin is the live one.
The NYTimes reports that CIA info on intelligence abroad involving Bolten was shared with FBIs Kash Patel in advance of the raid.
NOTE — just read that LINK for the headline, too!
WHICH ONE IS FUNNIER?!?!
Trump understands that payback is necessary to the MAGA cause. These people must not be allowed to fade into the woodwork. It must be demonstrated that the old boy permastate network offers no protection.
Unfortunately the same lesson has not been learned here in Israel. Too many Likudniks and religious Zionists still think the Left is respectable and will “honor the will of the voters” and surrender power without a fight.
I’m flattered Cappy but you’re not my type.
@ huxley > “I know how astrology works and I was joking. Guess I shouldn’t have been stingy with the emoji.”
I also know the principles, and assumed you were joking; I should have ended thusly 😉
Very nice poem, thank you for sharing your writings with us from time to time.
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Wonderful. Great find, thanks for posting.
I can’t think of Pluto without remembering a panel in a Silver Age Superman comic showing Superman on Pluto gathering a large, rainbow-colored sunflower to take back to Earth as a gift for Bizarro-Lois.
Even as a kid I knew Pluto was too cold for sunflowers, but somehow the memory stuck with me.
Its a very remote location the dimensions are larger than i thought did tombaugh get it right in 1930 i would say reasonably so
Meanwhile
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1958905945725046937
Interesting video thanks for sharing.
huxley,
Ha ha I wanted to learn more and found this cover image: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/superman/images/6/61/The_Bride_of_Bizarro.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110513044548 🙂
Ironic
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1958909611592786038
Heres why
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1958892107755896919
Is empathy a sin?
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/aug/21/empathy-virtue-sin-conservatives-christians-argue-empathy-vice/
Great video.
They talk about how fast the craft must fly to keep the number transit years down, and a 6 hour transit time for signaling back to earth. But I find it fascinating that they can actually transmit that much data over that distance at all. I wonder about the combination of antenna, transmit power, and digital signal processing or codecs used.
Selfy:
Please read this post about what the poet Robert Frost said about justice and mercy.
That was nice! It gives good grounds to give Pluto back its planetary dignity, I think. It’s quite surprising that such a degree of chemistry could go on there. I wonder how much of it could be due to the fact that Charon is there, its gravity perhaps causing some internal churn under the Plutonian surface, since Charon is so relatively large compared to its orbital ‘parent’. (And not very far away, either – checking the ratio of orbital distance to diameter.)
Here’s another peculiar thing that the NASA website has to relate: Charon is tidally locked, like our moon. Back-of-the-napkin estimate suggests that Charon takes up about 3 1/2 degrees of the Plutonian sky, which would make it look quite big if looking up from the surface. One could in principle find the spot on Pluto at which Charon is at the zenith, camp out there for a few days and have Charon suspended overhead looking exactly the same the whole time. That would make any concept of tides very weird.
Of course I have to have a token editorial quibble: the narrator forgot, apparently, that he had explained what tholins were on three different occasions.
@Phillip Sells:It gives good grounds to give Pluto back its planetary dignity, I think.
If Pluto is a planet, then there should be like twenty planets (if not hundreds), including Ceres which, old as we are here, few of us are old enough to remember when it was in the list of planets (has an astronomical symbol and everything).
It wasn’t because of anything specific to Pluto that led to it being dropped from the list. It was because there are too many things like Pluto that would also have to count as planets, if Pluto did. A bit like the difference between a “continent” and an “island”.
It was discovered through chance while looking for an actual planet, anyway. It was not the planet they were looking for. That planet was never needed to account for orbital discrepancies once Neptune’s mass was estimated more accurately.
Selfy:
Thanks for the link! I had to shorten it for it to work:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/superman/images/6/61/The_Bride_of_Bizarro.jpg
I’m sure that was the issue I read and June, 1961 sounds right. I think Bizarro was wooing real Lois and Superman responded using sitcom logic by wooing Bizarro-Lois to get Bizarro jealous and go back to Bizarro-Lois.
Happy ending!
Is empathy a sin?
==
Here’s the ‘sermon’ that woman delivered. It’s largely drivel, no surprise to anyone who has sat in an Episcopal Church. It concludes with a bogus, gauzy description of Democratic Party mascot groups, in regard to whom we’re not to be big meanies by enforcing the law or by taking anyone else’s interests into consideration.
==
https://carmenmccain.com/2025/01/22/transcript-of-bishop-mariann-budes-sermon-during-the-2025-us-inaugural-prayer-service/
==
I’m not seeing that what’s repellent about her has much to do with feminism, other that invalid ordinations to supposed holy orders derive from some of the same confusions as other elements of feminist discourse.
But if Pluto isn’t a planet, how did all those astrology charts work?
Some details
https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Pluto/The-Pluto-System.php
I hadnt heard of some of these bodies
Of course they did
https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/22/never-trumpers-who-cheered-mar-a-lago-raid-melt-down-at-search-of-boltons-house/
Why shouldn’t there be twenty planets? When they found out there were ninety elements instead of four or five, did they redefine “element” to reduce the numbers to a list a third grader could memorize? As a Kansan I think we should designate Pluto as our Official State Planet.
When was Ceres called a planet? I’m pretty old and do not remember it ever being called a planet.
If Pluto is a planet, then there should be like twenty planets (if not hundreds)…
We could grandfather it in.
@FOAF:When was Ceres called a planet?
First half of the 19th century, would be very surprising indeed if you remembered.
@bof:When they found out there were ninety elements instead of four or five, did they redefine “element” to reduce the numbers to a list a third grader could memorize?
Once it was fully understood what an element was, it was also fully understood that there’s not necessarily a finite number of them; as long as you can add protons you can get another one.
Alan Stern (https://https://x.com/AlanStern) deserves a lot of the credit for getting the Pluto New Horizons spacecraft funded, built, and launched.
Lots of us are of the opinion that Pluto should be considered a planet, including Brian May (https://www.cnet.com/science/queen-guitarist-brian-may-weighs-in-on-pluto-as-a-planet/):
“May said he sees Pluto as a “classical planet” and suggested we consider it the outer edge of a classical planet zone.”
@sparkee:Lots of us are of the opinion that Pluto should be considered a planet
No one is stopping you. You will not be able to compel the astronomy community to agree with you, but it’s not like they’re going to fine you or something. Call Pluto whatever you want.
While you’re at it, call tomatoes “vegetables” and call lobsters “fish” if you’re in the kitchen, or even if you’re not. Call Pteranodons and Pterodactyls “dinosaurs” while you are at it. Words are here to serve us, not we to serve them.
“May said he sees Pluto as a “classical planet””
Does that suggest other classifications such as rock planets, country planets, jazz planets etc?
FOAF, the music of the spheres…
I didn’t want to have that argument about planet status again. Can’t we argue about tides on Pluto instead, and the plausibility of building living habitations there? That’d be more fun.
The FBI raids John Bolton? A brief Matt Taibbi interview finds him dishing out more context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkaYpK01hvY
Taibbi says the NYPost and his own sources tell him this is the first of a wave similar ones of more to come.
The reason why Bolton was came first is that statute of limitations on criminal charges expires next month.
For another glimpse of rare beauty, checkout Ronnie O’Sullivan making two maximums (his 16th and 17th, and the first he’s had in seven years) in one match on one evening roughly one hour apart, about a week ago. This is genius on display: https://youtu.be/ypuVCLn0H5Q
TJ:
Good link and good summary. I add my recommendation.
Between John Bolton and John Durham I’ll never trust a big moustache again.
“Please read this post about what the poet Robert Frost said about justice and mercy.”
Thank you, Neo, that was an interesting post! I am not much of a poetry reader, but I do enjoy Frost. I wasn’t aware of his political activity.
====
huxley, thanks for the info on The Bride of Bizarro!
A librarian of my acquaintance said that “all classification schemes are ultimately arbitrary. The point is, can you learn them?”
==
The mean diameter of Mercury is 5.19x that of Ceres, if I’m to believe Wikipedia. The square root of that coefficient is 2.28. An object with a diameter 2.28x that of Ceres would have one of 2,141 km. The mean diameter of Pluto and Eris exceed that. The diameter of a half-dozen moons in the Solar system do as well. Two moons exceed Mercury in diameter.
I’m reading a transcript of the Ghislaine Maxwell interviews & finding it interesting. Transcripts and audio links are here: https://www.justice.gov/maxwell-interview
@ huxley > “But if Pluto isn’t a planet, how did all those astrology charts work?”
About as well as they did with all the other planets.
Thanks, huxley.
Earlier, you ask (as many do) “if Pluto isn’t a planet, how did all those astrology charts work?”
Traditionally, astrology works with movements and positions of the (other) five planets visible to the naked eyes, plus Earth’s moon. (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune.)
Planetai or “wandering stars” describes hot these astronomical bodies movements, instead of appearing fixed like the stars do.
In England, William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781. At the time, he thought he’d discovered a comet and named it after his new Royal patron, the British King, “St. George.” Thus, learning it was a planet took two more years.
Naming a planet after one king in Europe was not popular. And therefore it took another 70 years to decide upon the name “Uranus” — a primordial Greek god and the only planet name derived from Greek.
Herschel used a 6 inch reflecting telescope in his discovery. “Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it is very dim [magnitude 5.6]….” —Wiki. Mag 5 generally requires binoculars or else ultra dark skies. The very faintest stars visible to the eye are mag 6. So, Uranus fits in this difficult, murky, frontier of visibility.
And experienced observers know to use an optical technique called “averted vision” or off-centered viewing because the retina there is more light sensitive than the center.
White House adjacent lawyer Mike Davis says that people who think the Bolton raid is about documents in his book-screed are going to be very surprised once the charging documents are unveiled. — via Watters on FNC
Michael Shellenburger’s sources concur. Instead it’s about “drip, drip, drip leaks by” Bolton when he was in the White House.
Thus, it sounds like the real objective is to punish Bolton for leaking WH information supported by classified documents — that’s how I’m reading the prosecutorial entrails.
The bigger question, given FBI Director Patel’s morning dicta on X.com — “No one is above the law” — is how far does this leaking to Trump opponents go? To the powerful within the Deep State?
My suspicions: yes.
AesopFan, TJ:
I know how astrology works and I was joking. Guess I shouldn’t have been stingy with the emoji.
I remember when Pluto was demoted, astrologers were upset. But they got over it and went back casting horoscopes per usual.
Re: Averted vision
I once wrote a poem partly about averted vision:
_______________________________
Directions
on a clear winter night look up
and find the Great Square
formed by Pegasus
follow the twin arcs
streaming from the upper left corner
that’s the Lady Andromeda
carried off by the wingéd horse
sight up from the second pair of stars
and slightly to the right
now don’t look straight at it
but a little to the side and
relax
there—that faint glow
the Andromeda Galaxy
“I’m reading a transcript of the Ghislaine Maxwell interviews…”
After reading the first 2 hours, I’m stopping. It seems that Maxwell is lying, mentally impaired, or just dumb. And Trump’s lawyer & US Attorney Todd Blanche seems to be incapable of uttering a coherent sentence.
Ok huxley.
I think the dissemination of classified documents
by John Boltin is the live one.
The NYTimes reports that CIA info on intelligence abroad involving Bolten was shared with FBIs Kash Patel in advance of the raid.
Yet the nature of the intel is not known.
The plot doth thicken.
NYTimes via Seattle Times at Free Republic https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4336219/posts
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/22/angry-michael-mann-isolates-himself-climate-exaggeration-backfires/
TJ:
John Bolton
🙂
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2025/08/22/hegseth-fires-head-of-defense-intelligence-agency/
Now show Uranus.
huxley—
Since you write “ Between John Bolton and John Durham I’ll never trust a big moustache again.” I must ask—
Have you seen the Babylon Bee headline? “John Bolton Eludes FBI By Blending Into A Herd of Walruses”.
This LOL headline by the Bee on Bolton’s moustache and the Walrus is not new to their coverage.
Check out the photo and headline on Bolton from 2019
https://babylonbee.com/news/john-bolton-waves-goodbye-returns-to-sea-to-be-walrus-again
NOTE — just read that LINK for the headline, too!
WHICH ONE IS FUNNIER?!?!
Trump understands that payback is necessary to the MAGA cause. These people must not be allowed to fade into the woodwork. It must be demonstrated that the old boy permastate network offers no protection.
Unfortunately the same lesson has not been learned here in Israel. Too many Likudniks and religious Zionists still think the Left is respectable and will “honor the will of the voters” and surrender power without a fight.
I’m flattered Cappy but you’re not my type.
@ huxley > “I know how astrology works and I was joking. Guess I shouldn’t have been stingy with the emoji.”
I also know the principles, and assumed you were joking; I should have ended thusly 😉
Very nice poem, thank you for sharing your writings with us from time to time.